Novel Excerpt: Silver

This is an excerpt from my urban fantasy novel Silver. (click here for aesthetic pinterest board).

Enjoy! (Please note I retain all rights to this. Don’t be a jerk and steal it).

Chapter Two

“I’m sorry Jen, but work just called in. They uh…there’s an emergency-I mean a problem.”

Martin bent his neck in a crook to secure the cell. He unlocked his car as he balanced a cup of coffee and a briefcase, and he tried to shove his Glock 18 into its holster.

“Is it really that important?” Jen asked on other end. “This is three times that you’ve – ”

“It’s urgent.” Martin climbed into the car. He put the coffee cup down and turned on the ignition.

“Can we talk about this later? Jen? Jen?”

She hung up.

He sat for a moment and the car purred in park. He slowly put his cell in his back pocket.

“Did it again,” he muttered and put the car in reverse.

In a few minutes he was out of the garage and heading towards the interstate.

He arrived at the Office at exactly 6:03 pm. It was located in a glass and steel skyscraper in the lower half of east Manhattan. A bank occupied the building, while the Agency for the Investigation and Subduing of Extraordinary Threats filled the top five floors.
But to the rest of the world the Agency was just another bank.

By the time he was in the elevator, the Glock with in his holster, the briefcase was swung securely over his shoulder, and his coffee was half empty in his hand.
The elevator was empty all the way up. He watched the red numbers change up in the corner, slowly, each with the same steady rhythm he watched so often. The floor was always polished, except at the end of the day when it was stained with wet footprints.
He thought about Jen for a moment and her disappointed voice. But shrugged his shoulders and took a sip of coffee.
The doors slid open, and he walked out. A round circle was painted in black on the floor with the word AISET.

A man with blue hair and a backpack walked in as Martin walked out. They nodded to each other, but didn’t know each others names. The elevator doors slid shut.

Martin went down the hall to the glass walled office at the end. He passed a no smoking sign and opened the door. The room was full of cubicles. He heard people typing. No one talked. The back wall was closed off with glass, separating another office.

He stopped and peeked inside the door. Windows lined the opposite wall, but all the shades were down.

He could see his boss. A black phone was at his ear, and he leant against his desk, so that only the back of his white shirt was seen, right behind the name tag neatly placed on dark wood: Gabriel Kuhn.

Martin tapped on the glass.

Kuhn glanced over his shoulder and titled his head up. His eyes squinted, and his jaw was eschew. Martin pointed with his hand to the door handle. Kuhn nodded, and as Martin entered, Kuhn finished on the phone and placed it down.

“This better be good,” Martin said as he walked up to the desk. He placed the briefcase and coffee down. “I broke a date to get here.”

He sat down in the leather chair across from the desk. Kuhn remained standing.

“Good, you took my advice.” He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.

“Well – it was the third time.”

“Third date?”

“Third time I broke it.”

Kuhn shook his head. He was silent for a few moments and rubbed the cigarette between his fingers. Martin rested his hands in his lap, and swiveled the chair from side to side. Kuhn looked worried.
Finally he stubbed the butt into a dish.

“I didn’t want you to have this detail,” he said. He glanced at Martin and sat down.

“And which one is that?” Martin asked.

“Someone we lost track of. It’s been a week. We know where she is, but not exactly. We spot her and then we lose her.”

“You want me to go after her?”

“Yes. I think you’ll have an advantage.”

Kuhn had his hands clasped, forward on the desk.

“What kind of advantage?”

Martin noticed that he was being unusually cryptic.

“I believe you knew her once.” Kuhn paused. “Her name is Silver.”

Martin didn’t move. The name hit him hard, as though a neglected ghost appeared. Yes, yes, he knew her. He remembered her too.
A chill went over him as he thought of Westbrook. That was the town they had lived in. Nestled in the mountains. It always felt cold to him. Cold, like the color white. White like her hair.

“I knew her,” he said.

“I assumed, since you grew up in the same place. Though you left.”

“She’s still there?”

“Not as of a week ago.”

“So you’ve been watching her?”

Kuhn leaned back in his own chair. “You’re surprised?”

Martin ran a hand through his hair. Memories he hadn’t thought to touch in years rushed back. Many had nothing to do with Silver, just Westbrook, his family.

“She was always different,” he answered. “Withdrawn. No living relatives. Or dead relatives that I know of.”

“There’s more,” Kuhn pressed.

Martin shifted. It was his turn to be hesitant. Westbrook was a memory that he had left to be fogged away in those mountains. Kuhn wasn’t asking for everything, just for Silver. Everything else could remain hidden.

“She has naturally white hair. She never spoke to anyone, not in a social way that is. She was very fond of animals, and had an unusual fascination with the weather. Sort of a reclusive naturalist.”
Martin took a breath. He put his tongue in his cheek.

“There’s one little thing more.”

“Magic. That’s – that’s what I’ve always called it.”

“It is what it looks like.” Kuhn stood up and lit another cigarette.

THAT’S ALL. WHAT DO YOU THINK????? (PS. I’m not actually looking for a critique).

Wow! I wish I could read part 1 and everything else afterwards! Looking forward to reading it all someday. I also really like the pinterest visuals. Martin has good visuals for his character. And the mountains….ahhhh, the mountains! And the little kitten is adorable. maf